One of the most powerful and important movies of all time. The true star is the writer Paddy Chayefsky who portrays the media for what it is - brain pollution that moves the unenlightened mind toward numbness. One of the great lines of all time is when the madman tells the viewing audience that "we on TV lie all the time and we'll tell you any garbage that you want to hear"! After seeing this movie (and its sister movie "The Hospital"), I was drawn away from the dumbing down of the media and have not watched mindless TV ever since!
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Network
(1976, Rated R, Drama, Starring Ned Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, William Holden, Peter Finch)
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Is it age appropriate?
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Not age appropriate for kids under 15, age appropriate for kids over 16; suggested age 15. -
Is it any good?
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Common Sense says
Biting '76 satire with a media literacy lesson.
Why We Rated This 
for Ages 15–16
What to watch out for
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Violence:
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Sex:
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Language:
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Consumerism:
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What Parents Need to Know
About Network
Parents need to know that this multiple Oscar winner features a great deal of cynicism -- and profanity. Obscene speech tumbles out of the mouths of well-educated and articulate characters -- broadcasters, in fact -- who angrily yell and scream about the ugly state of the world and current events (many specific to the 1970s and the Ford Administration, others that are resonant of today). One denies God's existence as a comforting illusion (but then he goes insane and thinks he's talking to God regularly, so there) and talks about democracy and individualism as being outmoded and dead. A group of violent, left-wing radicals are depicted getting their own TV show (apparently it's a winner, too). The main character, Max, supposedly the film's moral center, leaves his wife for the pretty, much younger, and thoroughly carnivorous Diana; he even says their affair is going to be a disaster, and it is. Diana is fleetingly topless in one of their sex scenes, which is quite brief (an intimacy problem she has, she explains).
Read our full review by Charles Cassady Jr.
Families Can Talk About
- Families can talk about the many disturbing propositions the movie puts forth: that greedy corporations control everything (broadcast news is only a part of it); that TV is a horrible, destructive force; and that the generation of viewers who grew up with TV are somehow damaged. Keep in mind that evening network TV (cable TV was practically nonexistent), when this film came out, was filled with inoffensive stuff like Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Barnaby Jones, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and most of the current programming of Nickelodeon's TV Land -- hardly the Fall of Civilization. Do you think writer Paddy Chayefsky accurately predicted garbage TV, or are the worst of his imaginings still to come?
Our Members Say
Most Recent Reviews
- I rate this title on for age 17 and give it
When the viewer is ready to see the TRUTH, see this movie!!!
- I rate this title on for age 17 and give it
Prophetic and so true!!
If you are looking for a movie that compels you to examine the effect of media on our lives and the hollowness that it creates, you will be deeply affected by this masterpiece of satire and (sadly) comedy of our need fill the emptiness in our lives with trash.
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